


Thunderstorm

by DudaPie



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Character Study, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, I don't give two shits about what happened in canon, Let's pretend s4 part B didn't happen because it sucked and it ruined my ship, Other Characters Are Mentioned, Rollo is a good dad I don't care what happened in the show, Season 4 Spoilers, he is happily married to Gisla and in love with her and he loves his kids, yes congratulations Michael Hirst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 09:52:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12702423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DudaPie/pseuds/DudaPie
Summary: "He wished he could sit with his kids by the fire and tell them stories about his gods, like his parents used to do with him and Ragnar.When he was young and reckless, Rollo didn’t think much about becoming a father, but on those rare occasions when he did think of having a family, he always pictured his children as wild little beasts, hunting and training to be warriors and shieldmaidens. And after they all ate and were sleepy, ready to go to bed, he’d tell them about Jormungand, curled around the sea, or about the tree that held the nine realms, about Valhalla and Asgard.However, fate had a dark sense of humor, and now he was duke in a Christian land. To his children, Thor, the big man banging his hammer, was no one"There's a thunderstorm in Paris. Celsa, Rollo's youngest child, is scared, and wants some comfort. Rollo is quick to give her comfort, but he did not expect all the questions the little girl would come up with.





	Thunderstorm

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! This is my first Vikings fanfic and, again, fluff, because if I wanted to see the characters I like suffer I'd just go back to watching the show.  
> I haven't finished watching season 4B but I mostly hated it (except for Ragnar's story arc, that was amazingly well done) because the characters I like the most were pretty OOC. Yeah, that's terrible writing. Anyway I made this one-shot as a fix-it fic to myself, because I refuse to accept that Rollo would so quickly quit his new life as an important dude in Frankia to go raiding because he was "unhappy" when we can see how pleased he was at the end of 4A. So let's pretend 4B didn't happen and that Bjorn didn't go to Frankia to ask Rollo to join him on his raid in Spain.  
> ALSO: I assume that Rollo is a bit older than Ragnar, for some reason. I have no idea if that's canon or not.  
> ALSO ALSO: Celsa is around eight here.  
> ALSO ALSO ALSO: I think they're all from Norway in the show???? Sorry geography/history nerds, I swear did some wikipedia research to write this.

The rain had started in the middle of the afternoon and it hadn’t stopped since. Rollo couldn’t tell exactly how late it was, because the sky had been dark with heavy clouds the entire day, but he knew that his kids, his wife and most of the people who lived in the castle were already asleep.  
Or so he thought.  
As loud thunders and quick lightnings crossed the sky, the duke of Normandy watched quietly from his table, in one of the castle’s many halls. Some papers had been left for him to read and study, reports of war and matters of state, but Rollo didn’t feel like struggling with all those annoying intricacies of Frankia.  
But he couldn’t sleep either. The image of Gisla laying peacefully by his side, under warm and comfortable covers, was tempting, but the thunderstorm kept him awake. It reminded Rollo of the sea, and how exciting and dangerous it was to face a storm when they were going to find somewhere to raid. The destructive forces of nature were so dangerous, but also so beautiful.  
Rollo remembered the first time he sailed West, to England, and how everyone thought that Ragnar was a mad men, that the gods would sink their ship for trying to defy them. But the ship – Floki’s masterpiece – resisted the storm, and they all lived to tell the story.  
Those memories came to Rollo’s mind as quick as the lightnings crawled through the night sky, and he caught himself smiling at the falling rain, watching it through the nearest window. That was when he noticed he was not alone.  
A small shadow stood beside the door, no more than a few feet away from him, partially illuminated by the firepit on the opposite side of the room. Rollo quickly recognized the dark curly hair and delicate gown.  
“Hello, Celsa” he said, calmly “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”  
“You should be asleep too, papa!” his daughter pointed out, stepping in his direction with amusement on her voice.  
“Well, I’m a grown-up. I can choose what I want to do. Why are you out of bed?”  
Celsa hesitated before answering. Then a thunder was heard, loud and resonant, and the little girl ran quickly to hide behind her father’s legs. Rollo understood what was happening and took her into his arms.  
“You’re scared of lightning, aren’t you?” he asked. Celsa nodded and hugged her father as another thunder roared through the skies.  
“I’m a silly girl. Mamma said that inside the castle nothing can hurt us. I shouldn’t be scared” she murmured “William and Marcellus aren’t afraid of the thunder”  
“Oh, but they are afraid of other things, I’m sure of it. I saw Marcellus run away screaming from the guard’s dogs after they barked at him, and William thinks the throne room is haunted by the ghost of Charlemagne”  
Celsa chuckled and proceeded to play with her father’s beard, as she stared shyly at him.  
“Papa, were you afraid of thunder when you were a kid?”  
“I was, for a while” Rollo confessed, running one of his hands through his daughter’s hair “But I was too ashamed to say so. I had a little brother, just like William has you and Marcellus. I wanted him to think I was stronger”  
“So you didn’t tell him you were scared?”  
“Yes. I think he knew, anyway – every time there was a storm I hid in our room and covered my ears”  
“How did you stop being afraid of thunder, then?”  
Rollo paused as he thought of what to answer. He barely talked about his family – his heathen family – and the kids didn’t know much about his past. Why should they? He was their father, duke of Normandy, and it was enough.  
“My mother used to tell me a story, when it rained. She used to say that the thunders were just the sound of a big man banging his hammer on his forge, and lightning was the sparks that metal created as it was being hit”  
That was the closest as he could get to the truth. The girl’s big brown eyes were full of curiosity and Rollo realized how dangerous that could be. Like standing on a ship in the middle of the storm, it was beautiful but it highly destructive.  
He wished he could sit with his kids by the fire and tell them stories about his gods, like his parents used to do with him and Ragnar.  
When he was young and reckless, Rollo didn’t think much about becoming a father, but on those rare occasions when he did think of having a family, he always pictured his children as wild little beasts, hunting and training to be warriors and shieldmaidens. And after they all ate and were sleepy, ready to go to bed, he’d tell them about Jormungand, curled around the sea, or about the tree that held the nine realms, about Valhalla and Asgard.  
However, fate had a dark sense of humor, and now he was duke in a Christian land. To his children, Thor, the big man banging his hammer, was no one. Valhalla didn’t mean anything to them – they only believed in Heaven, in one true God and his son. Rollo might have accepted this new faith in order to marry Gisla and to gain his title as duke, but Christianity meant nothing to him. He could go to mass, kneel and pray, but he would never forget his homeland and its gods.  
Rollo wished he could calm Celsa by telling her about the great Thor and his hammer, but if he did so and she ended up telling the story to someone else, she would be shoved into a convent and Rollo would become just a heathen again. He couldn’t risk it. Maybe, when she was older, he would explain all of it. But for now, Thor was just a big man in a forge.  
“Was your brother afraid of the storm too, papa?” Celsa asked, and suddenly the former Viking was brought back to real life.  
“I don’t know, dear. He never told me, he thought I’d mock him. And to be fair, I probably would”  
The girl stayed quiet for a few moments, thinking. She was a very smart girl for her age. In more than one occasion Rollo had seen Celsa question her tutors or give them a witty answer, leaving them in search of words to censor her rebelliousness. Rollo wasn’t sure who she resembled more in those moments – him, or Gisla.  
“Papa, I didn’t know you had a brother” Celsa said, her curious eyes staring into her father’s “Why did we never meet him?”  
Rollo let out a tired sigh. He moved back into his chair, and now Celsa was sitting on his knees, facing him. He wondered if the girl knew that this was a forbidden subject and if that she wanted to break the rules once again.  
“My brother lives far away, up North”  
“In the Nord-pas-de-Calais?”  
“Even further North. In another country, called Norway”  
“Nor-way” Celsa repeated, nodding “And what’s your brother’s name?”  
“My brother’s name is Ragnar” Rollo answered, very aware that the conversation was going to a tricky place. Not only was his daughter learning too much but he was beginning to feel a weight on his chest. The weight of guilt.  
“Does he have sons or daughters?” Celsa now had an angry look on her face, almost as if she was insulted “Mamma doesn’t have any siblings, and we don’t have any cousins to play with! Uncle Rah-gue-narre must have little children to make us company”  
Rollo moved his hands across his face in an attempt to organize his thoughts. It took him a while to continue the conversation, and it was a topic he never hoped to discuss with his children. He shouldn’t tell them about Ragnar being their uncle, or that they had heathen blood running through their veins along with their French blood, in the exact same amount.  
“Ragnar’s children are grown up now, though they were as small as you when I last saw them” Rollo answered. He often imagined what his younger nephews looked like now. He hoped all of them were alive “And I’m afraid you won’t meet them, dear. Neither my brother nor his sons will come to Frankia anytime soon”  
“Why?”  
God, children never stopped asking questions. With three of them running around, Rollo wondered how he hadn’t gone insane yet.  
“The last time Ragnar was here, we had a battle. We fought against each other. We don’t get along anymore” Oh, he wished it was as simple as that.  
“A battle? A real battle?”  
“Yes, a real battle”  
Celsa nodded and leaned against Rollo’s chest once again, staring at the window. The rain seemed to be fading now, but a lonely thunder caught Celsa unprepared and she let out a scream. Rollo could only wrap his arms around the girl and shush her.  
“I told you I’m silly. Even with you here I’m still scared” Celsa murmured “Marcellus said that this is what girls do, we get scared all the time”  
“He is wrong, you know. I’ve met women who are braver than many men”  
“Like who?”  
“Your mother” Rollo answered, though Gisla was not the first person who popped into his head “When I first met her, she was in the middle of the battle, urging the men to fight and protect Frankia. That was when I fell in love with her”  
“Was that the same battle where you fought uncle Rah-gue-narre?”  
There it was. Celsa was too smart for her own good.  
“No. It was another battle, when I first came to Frankia. I was a very different person” Rollo answered, slowly “But that doesn’t matter now. I am a good man today because after that battle your grandfather allowed me to become a frank”  
“Oh, so you weren’t born in Frankia, papa? Is that why you speak funny sometimes?”  
“That’s right” Rollo smiled “I was born in Norway too, like my little brother”  
“Do you miss Norway, papa?”  
Another weight was added to Rollo’s chest. He missed his home, terribly. He missed the ale, the songs, the fighting and screaming, he missed his friends and he missed Kattegat. And above all, Rollo missed his family. Bjorn had been like a son to him, Gyda’s death was still a painful memory, and Rollo wish he could see his other nephews grow up to be warriors too. Rollo missed the fearsome women he befriended at home. Aslaug, who wore her royalty with pride and honor, Lagertha, the fearsome shieldmaiden he never really stopped loving, and Siggy, who deserved a better lover than him, and most of all, deserved to have had a better life.  
And of course he missed Ragnar. How could he not? They were brothers, fought by each other’s side all their lives. Somedays, Rollo woke up and hated himself for having betrayed him once again. He wished he had let Bjorn stay in Frankia, he wished he wasn’t a traitor.  
But then, Rollo would see his children, prouder and stronger every day. He would see Gisla, with all her beauty, all her love, and all her wits. She wasn’t a shieldmaiden, but she was no less of a fighter. And that’s why Rollo could never leave her, never betray her. He would see how far he’d come – being duke, in a powerful land, just as he had always dreamed of. That was enough to make Rollo contempt himself with his situation.  
He must have stayed silent for too long, and there was probably some change in his expression, for Celsa than asked:  
“Papa? Are you listening to me?”  
“I am, dear. I was just thinking. I have been away from Norway for a long time” he answered. Celsa looked him in the eye, worried.  
“Did I make you sad, papa? I’m sorry”  
“It’s alright, Celsa. But I think it’s time for both of us to go to bed now. The storm is almost over, and you barely noticed any thunder”

***  
Rollo took Celsa to her chamber and put her into her bed. He kissed her head and was halfway to the door when Celsa shyly called him back.  
“What is it now, dear?”  
“You said you have fought in battles”  
“In many battles, yes”  
“Will Marcellus and William go to battles too?” Celsa asked. Her voice was barely a whisper and there were tears in her eyes.  
“I don’t know, Celsa” Rollo answered with a sigh “Maybe they will. William is the next king of Frankia. He must defend the kingdom. Maybe someday they will have to go to war”  
Celsa seemed heartbroken at the thought of her brothers fighting, and hid her face behind the blanket. Rollo could hear her crying, so he sat by her side again and took the blanket away from her face.  
“Celsa. Look at me. You don’t have to worry about that now. You are only children, and children don’t go to battle. Your brothers are safe. When the time comes, I’m sure they’ll be prepared enough to face any danger that might come their way. They won’t be alone, they’ll have plenty of soldiers by their side” Rollo said “And if anyone wants to threaten the lives of you and your siblings, here in Paris or anywhere in the world, they’ll have to go through me first, and I’ll have their head on a spear. I’m not letting my children stay in danger. That is a promise”  
The little girl listened closely and seemed calmed with her father’s answer. She gave him one last hug and laid again in bed. With her eyes closed and a little smile on her lips, Rollo thought that his daughter looked a bit like an angel.

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo what did y'all think? Cute enough? Do you guys even like Rollo or is he just a GODAMMN TRAITOR? Tell me in the comments! If you liked my writing, would you want me to write more Vikings stuff? Cause I have some ideas...


End file.
